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Simply Haiku: An E-Journal of Haiku and Related Forms
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Jim Kacian, "Looking and Seeing: How Haiga Works." Pages:
[ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ] [ 5 ] [ 6 ] [ 7 ] [ 8 ] [ 9 ] [ 10 ] Page 13: Model 3--Tangential Haiga
The poem reads, "looking at the light / there is a wind / this night of snow". The picture shows none of the images presented in the poem, but rather the charcoal basket, which allows the whole to take on a cozier aspect, a mingling of warmth with the chill. What is more beautiful than watching the freeflight of descending snowflakes when we are comfortably warm? The charcoal basket is casually sketched, and to assert its peripheral status in the piece the artist actually has it fall off the edge of the paper. The hint of wind is caught in the calligraphy, with its sinuous curves and wide vertical spacings. The visual is definitely subordinated to the verbal in this work, but in such a beguiling fashion, and so modestly, that it is easily assimilated into the cosmos limned by the poem, and in fact infinitely deepens it. Again these are representational examples, but non-representational ones abound.
The poem reads, "through the ages / rising above the mountains / tonight's moon." The moon is nowhere to be found, and the visual element is reduced to a single line to represent the mountain who is the genius of the poem. Does the moon illumine the bare outline of this mountain? Or are we waiting for this moon to rise above it? It is impossible to say. Notice, though, that even though the painted moon does not show itself, the calligraphed image of the moon does indeed, the left-most image of the poem. This is a wonderful example of incorporating the verbal element into the visual flow of the haiga. |
Another
excellent example of this threaded sort of connection is Ryota's charcoal
basket.
Consider
moon by the inimitable Shiro.